Unravelling the Creation of God Through Biomimicry

There is something wonderfully humbling about Velcro.

In 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral returned from a walk to find burrs clinging stubbornly to his clothes and his dog’s fur. Most of us would have pulled them off and forgotten about them.

De Mestral looked closer.

Under magnification, he saw tiny hooks on the burrs catching loops in fabric and hair. That observation eventually produced the hook-and-loop fastening system we know as Velcro.

Humanity invented something new by paying attention to something old.

The engineer was brilliant.

But the engineering principle was already there.

That distinction tells us something profound about science, technology and faith.

For Jews, Christians and Muslims who believe that the natural world is ultimately the work of God, biomimicry can become more than an engineering technique.

It can become a form of reading.

We read revelation through words.

We read creation through observation.

And sometimes creation contains blueprints.

Look. Then Look Again.

The Qur’an contains a remarkable challenge:

“You do not see in the creation of the Most Merciful any inconsistency. So return your vision: do you see any breaks?”

“Then return your vision twice again. Your vision will return to you humbled while it is fatigued.”

The verses concern the coherence of creation, particularly the heavens. They are not a scientific textbook.

But the intellectual posture is unmistakable:

Look carefully. Then look again.

That is also where science begins.

The scientist observes again.

The engineer measures again.

The inventor notices what everyone else walked past.

Biomimicry is, in one sense, organised attention.

Nature Was Engineering Before Us

The history of engineering is full of moments when humanity looked at nature and discovered that a solution was already there.

Japan’s high-speed Shinkansen once faced a tunnel-pressure problem. Engineer Eiji Nakatsu, also a birdwatcher, looked to the kingfisher, whose elongated beak helps it move rapidly from air into water with little splash. That biological form influenced the redesign of the train’s nose.

One of humanity’s most advanced transport systems had something to learn from a bird.

Lotus leaves inspired self-cleaning surfaces.

Gecko feet inspired dry adhesives.

Shark skin inspired specialised surfaces.

Humpback whale flippers influenced aerodynamic research.

Spider silk fascinates materials scientists.

Termite mounds have inspired thinking about passive ventilation and cooling.

Artificial neural networks, while not replicas of brains, took part of their original conceptual inspiration from networks of biological neurons.

Bill Gates once expressed the same astonishment through the language of computing:

“DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”

— Bill Gates, The Road Ahead

Gates was making an information analogy, not a theological argument.

But for the believer, the analogy raises an obvious question.

If highly sophisticated software leads us to admire its programmers, what should we make of biological information systems sophisticated enough to produce the programmers themselves?

The Bird Did Not Need a PhD

Living creatures possess capacities human beings spend generations trying to reproduce.

A migratory bird does not study navigation.

Yet some species cross continents and oceans.

A spider does not study structural engineering before building a web.

A bee does not obtain a degree in aeronautics.

An ant does not attend logistics school.

Biology is more complex than simply calling all of this “instinct”. Animals learn and adapt. Genetics, neural circuitry, development and environment interact.

But the deeper point remains.

Life comes equipped with remarkable capacities.

“Do they not see the birds above them spreading and folding their wings? None holds them up except the Most Merciful.”

This does not compete with aerodynamics.

For the believer, God is not an alternative to physics. God is the Creator of the universe in which physical laws, atmosphere, anatomy and life exist at........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)